DR: Mr Addiction, tell me who you are

[Guest guest]

YOU are phenominal...

the way you express your thoughts and ideas.

wish you could probe into my mind, and see the

patterns.i lack proper expression and that is why i

enjoy reading your mind blowing posts!!

just keep them coming...flowing...maybe trickling...

 

rhoda

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

gjlist, goravani@a... wrote:

>

> My counselor suggested I try to journal...

 

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!!

 

Namaste Dasji!!

 

Thank you for sharing that difficult moment...and the memories which

go with it of your dad...

 

you reminded me of my dad too, who also came home permanently

"wrecked" from the war...he warned my mom NEVER to wake him because

his training had been such that he might just kill her!!!

 

Some of the best years of their lives were taken up in that war...and

they saw their share of horrors whether in the European theater or the

Pacific theater...

 

i feel too, that the war affected the entire rest of my dad's life,

until finally he was able to relax more as he retired...when i was

growing up he was very difficult to live with and used alcohol

occasionally to dull his pain, only in his case it would effect a

personality change (alcoholic indicator!)...and he would be impossibly

grumpy, angry, difficult...

 

he didn't end up a psychiatric patient, but he did get counselling for

depression at one time...i think that war just destroyed a lot of

people...the ones who died, AND the ones who lived thru it..and WE are

the results of those poor folks who had to live thru that...actually

i suspect that ANY war would be just about as difficult if it went on

for 5 years...Vietnam vets have their private hells to go thru too...

 

i think it's a great sign of growth to be able to see the horrors that

our parents may have gone thru, and to forgive them for not being the

perfect people we may once have wanted them to be...They did the best

they could with what they were given...and didn't do what ever they

did to deliberately hurt us...it was just the way it was!

 

in the same way, our problems and addictions were not intended to hurt

our children...and if we are open and loving enough with them, perhaps

that will be the result...that they are not as harmed as we

were...already it seems this way with my beautiful almost grown up

children...they know what i am like..but they are kindly and loving

almost always with me...and they seem to be able to deal with the

world pretty well so far...so maybe we in our pain at least were able

to share with them that it wasn't their faults, and that we do love

them...even if we don't express it very well sometimes, and even if we

may have done some things which they don't approve of...

 

Actually when we look at it, we can have a lot of love and respect for

them, our parents, because of what they had to go thru...and if they

didn't always do the "right thing", well, neither do we!!...but they

and we both are trying to be loving and kind parents to our children

as far as we are able.

 

it is so nice to come out of the dark and into a little more light

isn't it dear brother!!..and to release all those feelings which were

causing "self-destruct" tendencies in us...

 

i see this as Divine Grace, that we went thru those hells, and that we

are able to look at them without anger and hatred now...that we can

live in love and peace rather than anger...

that those conditionings which drove us "crazy" don't have to have the

last word...if we can learn to see what is happening at the moment it

is going down...like you in writing your journal at the moment of

temptation....this provides a little more clarity...a little room

between the urge of the addiction, and the expression of it...enough

room in there and we can turn around and say "no thanks! don't need

that!"

 

In our Mother's Divine Love

and in Her Service

 

as ever

your own Self,

 

visvanathan

 

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!

[Guest guest]

goravani :

>

> this is my idea of love

>

Dear friends,

 

About 5 years ago I "adopted" Raghu Das as my son: the synastric connections

were so strong. We had problems. He often told me to shut up. I did, or tried

to. But we have always had love for each other. It is strange that Raghu is now

expressing the thoughts that he objected to from me once. But perhaps not

strange. As we get older, experience more things, our feelings and perspectives

get broader. The strict Vaidhnavite Das is now a Vaishnavite/Advaitist.... semi

Saivaite, universalist! It is his list and he raves and rambles - so do I,

hopefully with his permission.

 

Dear Raghu,

 

Great sharing! Yesterday a very good friend, a lady just over 60 visited me for

a few minutes. She looked tired and I said so, offering to make a cup of tea.

She had no time, but said it was because she was internally working out her

problems with her parents - both dead long ago.

 

This "understanding" of parents is one of he major tasks of life. Especially if

the parents are dead. There is no way of resolving things in a discussion. Night

after night you dream of the father or mother, carry on debates and arguing

with them, trying to tell them "they did you wrong", that they misunderstood

you, that you had reason for disapproving of what they did.........

 

We too perhaps misunderstood them. But more often, as children we are

"innocent", our values are pure. We xee things black and white, no grey areas.

Every deviation from the ideal is "bad" for us. We judge only by the values of

love and protection. At times this is perverted. If mom doesn´t give more

chocolates, whether out of poverty or care for one´s health, she is

"non-loving"!

 

Some day you think over the their situation. No one gets any schooling as to how

to treat or bring up kids. Parents are amateurs, who pragmatically try to do

what they think is good - and some just flip out, do perverse things led by a

sick mind! This last group is the one it is most difficult to sublimate the

relationship: a woman I know, sexually misused by her father, lives in torment!

 

Pearl Harbour, Iwojima, Guadalcanal ... only names for you. For me they were

more real: every movie started with 30 minutes of war news, we saw what the

reporters had filmed. Dunkirk, Dresden and Stalingrad! HELL on earth! The

"heroic" side was emphasized, but we couöd see the misery and whoever thought,

could feel it. I too have sat in air raid shelters, waiting to be bombed, - with

the Japs only a week´s march away. Terror, terror, terror. The Japs did not

come with Zen, Shinto, Origami or Bonsai, but with RAPE AND MURDER! We had

refugee children at our home and school: one, a boy, had started out on a march

from Singapore to calcutta with 13 members of his family. A march of over 1500

miles through jungle. The Japs strafed the fleeing refugees. The boy reached

calcutta, the other 12 members of the family lay dead and rotting on the way!

A greta quadrology epic film. made by a Jap, called, "Barefoot through the Snow"

shows the entire brutality of the Japo army, an epic full of moral values, sense

of tragedy and shame for one´s countrymen! A Jap producer who wished he had been

born elsewhere!

 

But you knew Vietnam and Korea!

 

The rehabilitation of those who survived Iwojima or Stalingrad was not easy.

Stalingrad was easier. My father -in.-law, whom I never met, died there. He was

a cpncert pianist. His picture when he married shows a wonderful face, like

Apollo. 4 years later he fell and a picture taken shortly before that shows a

Zeus, full of sorrow, compassion, but aged, aged, and hardened! He must have

been a great guy.

 

The war in Europe and Asia was conducted on the civilians too. You could be

killed on the front - or at home! So the re-integration was not so difficult.

The husband came back to the wife who had also suffered.

 

But with the US it is different. The men fought, the wives and kids were in

safety. The war effort did not really need any tightening of belts, tea-time

3as tea-time. No children buried in ruins. So the returning soldiers met their

families who had never really feared and suffered. Their attitudes were naive,

sanctimonious, ignorant of the brutality of life!

 

KV´s example of his father is very telling: "Don´t wake me up, for I might kill

you!" This trained and conditioned existence for years cannot be wiped out in a

moment of victory!

 

Those who survived Iwojima or Stalingrad were doomed to be callous - or insane!

 

All the pious and sanctimonious words, innocent behaviour etc. of those who

lived in protection, can never satisfy them or answer their questions. They only

see people who again and again create the horror they have been through, with

sweet words and cakes.

 

Even a simple question like, "Tea or coffee?" can set off memories of lying in

a mske-shift ward, legs or arms amputated, dear friend smattered to bits. For

those who "returned" there is solace only in the Gita and its ADVAITIC teaching,

if they at all get it..... Everything else is only cynical casuistry!

 

My father was a great guy, as a scholar and administrator. A terrible tyrant at

home. He had a great sense of humour, but radiated gloom. You could have spent

an hour laughing with him, but the end was always the same: a very hurting

remark, that turned all the laughter into tears. It was as if he said, "You´ve

had yor fun, but now let us get back to normality and live in gloom and

dissatisfaction!"

 

There was once a hit called "Oh my papa, how wonderful you were, took me on your

knees and turned my tears to laughter!".... or words to that effect. It was

originally German. i knew the composer - a Swiss German - and the woman who sang

it for the fist time, actually lived as a lodger in her home.

 

my dad was the opposite, could in a jiffy turn laughter into tears!

 

All religious festivals were for me only threats. Be it Krishnajayanti or

Ramanavami or Navarathri (particularly bad because it lasted 9 days at a run!)

were days I could count on the wrath of my father. His puja was all-important.

But various things could - and did, as in life it happens - could go wrong or

get delayed. Milk was not delivered in tme, flowers not plucked in time, the

offerings not ready when he rang the bell, some ruchus on the street had broken

his concentration..... endless reasons, that lead to outbreaks of wrath against

the world, against us.

 

With the result that I have never celebrated any Hindu festivals, for they are

associated with unpleasant memories. I celebrate Christmas - a day that did not

figure in Dad´s pujas specially! And I also say, God has no birthday, every day

is his birthday!

 

Today I see my father differently. A soul in conflict between ambition and

Durga! He had vidya, Knowledge, but not viveka, insight! A victim of custom and

tradition, desiring to breakthrough but afraid of doing so. A highly respected

person in the Indian scene, an honoured official in the British administration,

his womanizing was despicable. He did not honour his wife at all - leaving out

all thoughts of fidelity. She was ready to accept his side-stepping. But he

forced her to serve his mistresses, who were of the lowest class in culture.

 

We children could not accept this at all. But our reactions were very different.

Only my sister in geneva and I have sublimated this. The others could not.

 

Today I get dreams where my father appears as I´d have preferred to see him!

 

Parents, children, siblings: they are our test! If we understand and forgive

them for their failures - nevertheless condemning what they did or do -, we have

reached detachment to a great degree. If we can do it with our partners, the

process is complete.

 

regards

Mani